


A Sin of Trust

by Quiddity



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galra Big Bang, Gore, M/M, Prorok bein so weak, Thace bein a honeypot, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 03:09:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14010861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiddity/pseuds/Quiddity
Summary: Prorok couldn’t have asked for a better lieutenant. He was hardworking, whip smart and… handsome. He could trust Thace with anything. So when rumors of Voltron’s return make their way to the main fleet, Thace makes the daunting task of capturing the lions feel almost too easy. But Thace always knows what he’s doing, so why not trust his call?“I don’t even think you would have to offer that much,” Thace says, gathering up his pictures and closing the folder again. “More importantly, offer a pardon. You’ll have so many people desperate to get their hands on a Voltron lion the paladins will be completely overwhelmed.” Prorok meets eyes with Thace and for the first time he sees what’s truly beneath Thace’s even, neat demeanor. There next to him is a cunning opportunist, quiet, but distinctly Galra.“Sir, we have an opportunity here. Sendak found and then lost Voltron. That’s his own failing. If we sit back and let those in lesser stations put the lions at the Emperor’s feet, is that not our own failing?” Thace presses softly.





	A Sin of Trust

**Author's Note:**

> First, y'all better go over to tumblr and give [@ashcott](https://ashcott.tumblr.com/) some notes for being my artist for this. He knocked it out of the damn park on top of helping me put this thing together since day one. Thank you so much, buddy. 
> 
> PLEASE ALSO THANK YOU [@MIZULEKITTEN](https://mizulekitten.tumblr.com) FOR BETA-ING. I'M FUCKING FLABBERGASTED I FORGOT MY DANG BETA YOU DID AWESOME WORK AND IMPROVED THIS EXPONENTIALLY. 
> 
> Second, I have been sitting on this thing since probably early December and I'm finally, omg, I can finally post my Galra Big Bang. Basically Ashe and I decided we wanted Thace to honeypot Prorok and oh boy, this was a lot of fun to write. So even though I know this is a critically endangered rarepair, I hope you still enjoy it.

It occurs to him how rarely he actually sees Thace casually dressed when he glances over and sees his collarbones. He knows it's a strange thing to be allured by. But he never realized Thace had any markings besides the silver stripes lining his ears. But he sees them. Little, faint, stippled markings just under his collar, so barely there that Prorok finds himself glancing back again and again. As if he can’t believe they’re really there.

It's certainly more interesting to him than what's going on in the arena below. Thace, however, seems immersed in the show.  Which Prorok can only be grateful for. Surely if Thace had been paying attention he would have noticed Prorok’s wandering eyes.

He forces himself to watch the action in the ring. A handful of tusked, purple scaled predators linger around the edges of the ring, moving together in tight turns and coordinated patterns like a well oiled machine. Prorok has never seen these alien beasts before, but he can tell the things have been starved to the point of desperation. The seem undistracted by the bright lights and roaring crowd. They hardly look at each other, must less at the commotion around them as they circle in on their opponent.

Or prey, more like, The massive thing coiled up tight in the center of the ring hardly offers up much of a fight. Green, and lightly furred, its broad, square head rests atop its own body. Its mouth is wide, but toothless, its eyes small and dark and lacking the same kind of pert intelligence the other beasts have. It had moved to the middle, against one of the pillars, when it had been let in and the pack had been closing in on it, but now that it’s hunkered down, it doesn’t seem very interested in moving. Like somehow it’s convinced that its sheer size and defensive posture is enough to keep its attackers at bay even though a few of the flat, broad fins that line either side of its body twitch and bleed where the pack had worried at it.

It’s hardly a quick and bloody match. And even as the biggest hunter chirps and turns in to approach the snake from the side, Prorok’s attention breaks back to Thace, or more specifically, the little gap between Thace’s skin and his shirt as he shifts forward. Thace glances to him, his brow lifting in curiosity.

“Is there something you wanted to ask me, Commander?” Thace’s question is nearly drowned out under the disappointed roar of the crowd as the big hunter below wanders within a few feet of the snake, only to nip and shy away when it shifts and winds up tighter around itself.

Prorok stiffens, his mouth working over a question his mind hasn’t quite come up with yet. He glances into the pit, watches the pack recenter, rubbing sinuous bodies together as if they’re planning. His eyes are turned on the show, but his mind flies back to half a varga ago, when Thace had caught up to him at the entrance gates. Prorok had been drawn in by the tight fitting slacks and the way Thace’s tunic was belted around his waist. How long and graceful his fingers had looked gripping his wallet and admission ticket.

 _You’re a lot smaller without your armor_ , Prorok thinks, but he swallows back that thought. That’s for later.

“What are you doing here?” he asks instead. Thace stares back, his ears perking up in surprise and his eyes widen as he looks around. Like he doesn’t know how to respond.

“Sir?”

Prorok frowns. “I thought you didn’t come here very often. Why now?” he asks, motioning down where the pack starts closing in on the snake in a tight line. The gigantic beast loosens up a little, faintly recognizing the threat and wondering if it should bolt. It’s a slow night.

“That’s only because I can’t usually find the time,” Thace says. He relaxes, sits back in his seat and Prorok’s eyes flicker down to Thace’s collar again. Those are definitely stripes on his chest. Thace continues. “Not because I have anything in particular against it.” Below them, the pack speeds up to a trot, then a desperate sprint. They close the distance to the snake in a matter of seconds. The snake shifts one way, and the pack splits in two, one half cutting off its escape.

Two of the pack dive into the snake’s side, both grabbing mouthfuls of one of the fins and pulling back hard. There’s a snap, and the snake groans deeply, the sound echoing as the fin pulls from its body in a thick stream of bright blue blood. It shudders, starting to follow after the two that hurt it when the other half of the pack dives in, shoving themselves through the blood and beneath the fin to rip chunks of tender flesh straight from the snakes muscled belly.

Prorok wrinkles his nose as the snake shifts uneasily, unsure of where it wants to go when the entire pack is already eating what they’ve taken. Prorok’s stomach turns seeing the exposed muscle and stained bone shift and bleed as the snake writhes, but is ultimately too tired or scared to lash back. He glances to Thace, finds that his lieutenant seems unfazed by the sight, watching unblinking as the pack call to each other in sharp, haunting sounds.

“What are you doing otherwise?” Prorok asks. The snake bellows again. Thace hums, not pulling his eyes away from a sight Prorok can’t quite watch. The damned thing won’t fight back even when the pack is eating it alive. Finally Thace shrugs.

“I’m usually working,” he admits. Prorok huffs.

“Stop working so much then,” He says. “If there’s too much leftover give it to some of the others. That’s what they’re there for.” Thace glances to him then.The faintest smile pulls at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh sure, Throk loves it when we put anything extra on his desk.”

“But it gets done,” Prorok replies easily. Compared to this conversation, the sight of Thace’s washed out fur in the bright overhead lights nearly makes him forget the clumped, bloody sand below and the cries of pain that wash over the crowd.

“Eventually,” Thace says. He laces his fingers together, and Prorok glances at sharp, neatly trimmed claws as Thace turns his attention back to the show beneath them. “I haven’t been here since someone let one of Sendak’s nicer gladiators free. I can’t quite remember what they called him,” Thace says, one ear twitching.

“The little one? Everyone called him Champion,” Prorok supplies. Thace nods. A short beat of silence follows and Prorok is all too aware of how it seems to hang heavily between the two. The crowd’s noisome cheering reaches a new high when the snake finally starts to move aggressively. It lifts its head, ignoring most of the pack in favor of tracking the leader closely as the smaller beast once again wanders near to it.

“Letting that prisoner escape came back to bite him even harder than whatever punishment Zarkon put on him. I heard it after work today. I was going to tell you first thing in the morning, but since I found you here…” Thace’s voice pulls Prorok’s attention away. Prorok turns his ears forward, interested, but Thace sits up, beckoning him with a finger. Prorok leans in. The feeling of Thace’s lips brushing his fur as he whispers in his ear makes his fur stand up with a sensitive thrill. “That prisoner came back.  With more of his kind and the other lions of Voltron. They found his ID opening some of the bulkheads. And I heard that not only did they steal the red lion right off of his ship, but he let him get away as well,” Thace says. He leans back, and Prorok stares at him, wide eyed.

He hardly believes what he’s hearing. Sendak, who was a war hero worthy enough to be greenlit for experimental augmentations when he’d been mortally injured instead of put out of his misery. Sendak, who was rumored to be Zarkon’s favorite protégé. Sendak, who had found one of Voltron’s lions after ten thousand years. In light of all his success, losing a high level prisoner _and_ the red lion within a couple of weeks was a hard fall indeed. It felt good just hearing the news. That young commander had had everything handed to him lately. It was only a matter of time before he learned that he’d never be able to keep a tight enough grip on it.

“If I didn’t know better,” Prorok says lowly, “I’d start wondering if Sendak hasn’t gotten a little overconfident lately.” A pained, startled chorus of barks sound from the arena below. Prorok glances down, his brows lifting in surprise when he sees the snake lifting its head high, blood coating its toothless mouth. The pack leader is limping away quickly, one of its back legs reduced to a bleeding stump just above the knee joint. The rest of the pack is in a panic, jumping at the snake and tearing into it with claws and teeth, but the snake is undeterred. It watches the leader, calculating. Then it strikes, faster than Prorok would have ever guessed capable. Its head stabs into the sand so hard the dull thump of the impact echoes off the high ceiling. It hits the pack leader dead on, lifts the still weakly struggling beast in its mouth.. It bites down and the thing goes still.  

Prorok’s chest aches in a kind of sick excitement at the sight of so much blood dribbling down the snake’s chin. Thace only hums to himself. “At the very least, I think Sendak should be looking at his crew with a more critical eye. One spy has already shown himself. That must mean there are more. If the spy among Sendak’s crew had made it among his surgeons, there’s no telling where the others are by now.”

* * *

 

“You heard what happened, didn’t you?” Prorok asks through the open doorway connecting his office to Thace’s. He can’t see Thace where he’s sat at his desk, but when he listens he hears the soft rustle of papers as Thace works. He waits patiently for the better part of a minute, his ears twitching for any little sound. The faintest scratch of a pen, the hum and click of a stapler. Just when Prorok starts to think that Thace hadn’t heard him, he hears Thace push back his chair a couple seconds before he appears in the doorway, a sheaf of papers in his hand .

“I’m sorry, Commander, I just had to put this together before I handed it off to you. I didn’t want to forget about it,” he says. He steps in, holds the papers out to Prorok, already turned to the page where he needs to sign. Prorok takes it and motions to the armchair set in front of his desk. Thace settles into it gracefully. “What happened?”

“I thought the witch was going to rip one of her druid’s heads off just for the fun of it,” Prorok says. He skims over the papers; a report from a patrol saying that, ultimately, there was nothing of interest to be found. He signs it off. Thace gives him a little twitch of an amused smile.

“I had heard that the experiment she had sent failed. Voltron apparently left nothing but bits of scrap,” Thace says. He opens his mouth, but changes his mind and simply shrugs. “At any rate, that’s a lot of money gone.”

“Not only that, that plaything was her pride,” Prorok says, filling in what Thace wasn’t quite willing to voice aloud. “I know she likes to act like nothing affects her, but she couldn’t hide it this time. Voltron tearing that robot to pieces hurt her more than she wants to admit.”

“That, and letting down Zarkon,” Thace says. He rests his elbow on one arm of the chair and rests his cheek in his hand. “She insisted on testing it instead of sending in another fleet and it didn’t pan out.”

Prorok shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter. Zarkon’s not going to do anything to her anyways. He likes her, for some reason.”

After a beat Thace says: “Voltron’s working together better than any of us expected. They’re going to be harder to detain than we first thought.”  Again, Prorok disagrees.

“That’s because we’re playing around with experiments and magic. The empire has more than enough manpower. They may be able to form Voltron, but they’ve still only been a _small_ team for a few weeks. They’re new. It would be easy to overwhelm them and be rid of the headache,” Prorok says.

“You never did trust magic,” Thace says quietly. Prorok crosses his arms over his desk and leans into them.

“That’s because plasma weapons and ion cannons have been proven reliable for generations. We already have the framework established and ready to go. Anything else is just nonsense that leads to failure and giving Voltron more time to make itself a bigger problem than it has to be,” he says. Thace’s smile widens, showing the hints of his canines. It’s a tiny, predatory show under his usually stern demeanor that Prorok thinks is quite handsome.

“If I remember correctly, Voltron ripped the ion cannon right off of Sendak’s ship,” then he lifts his hands, palms out. “Just playing the opposition.” Prorok bites easily.

“Because Sendak’s not only stupid enough to let them steal the red lion from under his nose, but to go after a legendary super weapon with a single ship. That’s why he’s stranded on quiznaking Arus with only his lieutenant and a handful of half scrapped sentries.”  

“I still don’t think that’s going to stop him,” Thace says. “He’s headstrong.” Prorok doesn’t like the way Thace’s voice goes a little soft at that, as if he’s sympathetic to him.

“He’s suicidal is what he is,” Prorok huffs.

“Are you jealous?” Thace teases lightly. He looks almost as if he’s enjoying the fact that he’s ruffled his commander a little. Prorok frowns, narrowing his gaze on his lieutenant.

“You know perfectly well I don’t have to be.”But he knew he might. Sendak was brave enough and clever enough that he would probably come up with something, even with the minuscule resources he had. If he still managed something now, it would be as if he had never made any mistakes in the first place.

* * *

 

Prorok very nearly ignores the knock at his door. It’s late at night and he’s already showered and winding down with a little reading before he goes to bed. He glances up, wondering if perhaps he had misheard one of his neighbors getting a visitor. The knock comes again. From his own door.

Well, if someone’s coming after him this late at night, then it must be urgent. Prorok sighs and sets his book aside before he stands and makes his way to the door.

It’s Thace. He’s out of his armor, but he still wears a nicer jacket. He nods politely, motioning to a folder he has held tightly under his arm.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Commander,” Thace says. His eyes flicker down, and Prorok feels an uncomfortable warmth pass over him, as if he’s somehow out of step for being in his pajamas so late at night when he wasn’t expecting any visitors. “But, I have something pressing to ask you. I didn’t think it could wait until morning.” Prorok steps back from the door and holds it open for Thace, who steps in easily and makes his way towards the couch.

“Do you uh…” Prorok says, watching as Thace sits, setting his folder on the coffee table and glancing towards Prorok’s book (a historical mystery that he’s only half ashamed to have seen), “Do you want something to drink?”

Thace shakes his head. “No, sir, I’ll only be a minute.” Prorok takes it as a hint, letting the door hiss shut as he comes to join his lieutenant. Thace opens the folder and shows a small stack of pictures. From the serial numbers and the timestamp in the bottom corner, Prorok recognizes them as printouts of sentry recordings. Prorok flips through the images. White, well lit halls. Flashes of motion. Familiar looking aliens dressed in gaudy color coordinated suits of armor. One of them is so scuffed up Prorok doubts they’re even alive. One of them is tiny. Another is the Champion, dressed in Zarkon’s own ancient armor.

“This is from Arus?” Prorok asks. He sees hints of Sendak and his lieutenant Haxus but mostly the halls are empty. He flips to the last picture and pauses. This one is from outside the castle, up on a hill. The timestamp from more than a full day later. The entire bottom half of the castle is disguised in smoke and dust as it prepares to take off. Prorok glances at Thace and holds up the image.

“They left?” A warm sense of justice twists in Prorok’s chest. This is what Sendak got for being sloppy and getting himself into that mess in the first place. This is what Zarkon got for choosing to take risks with Haggar’s experiments instead of allowing him to simply send in troops to sweep up a small mess. “How long ago was this?”

“It just got in about an hour ago, but it takes nearly six hours for signals so far away to get to central command. They’re far from Arus by now,” Thace explains. “I would have gotten you video, but that’s harder to make a copy of as quickly.” Several questions flit through Prorok’s mind all at once, but it’s probably the least important one that actually makes it out of his mouth.

“This a hobby or something? Digging through incoming surveillance after work?” Thace’s eyes widen, his ears pull back a little and stiffen and for the barest second. Something between worry and a cool hint of offense crosses his face.

“I felt like this was an important situation to keep tabs on,” Thace says easily. And then, before Prorok can even apologize; “Because in case something like this happened, I wanted to tell you.”

“What are we supposed to do about this?” Prorok asks, leaning back and holding the picture of the castle’s takeoff in front of him. “We don’t have approval to send any of our own troops after them. I could ask again, but I doubt Zarkon’s going to change his mind so easily. And even if we did I would have no idea where to send them. They could be anywhere by now.”

“We don’t have to look for them ourselves,” Thace says. “I suggest we put out a bounty. There’s innumerable people out there who would do anything to get in the Empire’s good graces. Most of them aren’t Galra. The paladins don’t trust the Galra, but anybody else? They’re too new, they won’t know how to properly handle them. They’ll want to trust and, sooner or later, someone will be able to get at least one of the lions away from them. Then,” Thace makes a small motion with his hand. “Voltron isn’t in the picture anymore, and the Empire is free to pick off the rest of the lions at their leisure.”

It was a good idea. It was a really good idea. All he would have to do was post a reward and the bandits and thieves would be clambering over each other to deliver a lion directly to him. Sure, Zarkon wouldn’t love him doing it without his express permission, but if it got results, what was there to complain about? “Money?” he asks.

“I don’t even think you would have to offer that much,” Thace says, gathering up his pictures and closing the folder again. “More importantly, offer a pardon. You’ll have so many people desperate to get their hands on a Voltron lion the paladins will be completely overwhelmed.” Prorok meets eyes with Thace and for the first time he sees what’s truly beneath Thace’s even, neat demeanor. There next to him is a cunning opportunist, quiet, but distinctly Galra.

“Sir, we have an opportunity here. Sendak found and then lost Voltron. That’s his own failing. If we sit back and let those in lesser stations put the lions at the Emperor’s feet, is that not our own failing?” Thace presses softly. Prorok lets out a slow breath.

“Write it up then, and go ahead and post it as soon as you do. I trust your judgement, so I’ll just read over it in the morning,” he says. Thace takes his folder and stands with a little bow.

“Thank you, sir. I promise I won’t let you down.”

* * *

 

“They said, ‘some stolen merchandise from the Galra Empire may have fallen into our possession without us knowing about it’” Prorok says, motioning his hand as he quotes. “Like it was an accident. Can you believe that?” Thace smiles beside him and shrugs, looking about as impressed by that excuse as Prorok feels. Both of them are sitting in Thace’s office, intently watching the video feed from one of the Empire’s smaller transport ships. Waiting for word from the two privates they had sent out nearly an hour before.

A few days ago Prorok had gotten in contact with someone claiming to not only know where the Voltron lions were, but that he had the blue one already secured in his ship. He wasn’t going to believe it until he had the lion to himself, but he had to admit he had been impressed with how quickly Thace’s idea for a bounty had yielded results.

He wanted that lion more than anything, but like hell was he going out there and meeting with thieves on some backwards moon to pick it up himself. Thace had handled that by finding a couple of volunteers from the office. Privates who wouldn’t turn down a bit of a bonus and a few points towards promotion in the future.

Thace says he trusts them, but Prorok can’t help but wonder as he watches them linger in the camera’s view in front of the ship. They’re chatting easily, the package with the payment for the blue lion resting undisturbed on a rock between them.

“I can believe it,” Thace hums. He crosses his arms on the desk and raps the surface with his claws. “I’m less than surprised that someone willing to steal a Voltron lion would be the same sort of people who would read the fine print and learn that a bounty is also on the table. However,” Thace pauses, and the sly glance he gives Prorok leaves him biting back a smile. “He said ‘merchandise’? Makes me feel like we’re moving jewelry instead of military grade weapons.” Prorok huffs laughter.

“Anything to make it sound like he didn’t steal from the Empire, even when he’s asking for a pardon,” Prorok says. “It’s pointless. We won’t arrest them now, but we’ll get them later on.”

“Even with the pardon?”

“The bastards stole from the Empire at least once and got away with it. Even with that reward I doubt they’ll be able to resist trying it again. There’s only so many lions to go around,” Prorok says. He leans back in his chair, watching as one of the privates on the screen stretches and yawns. Thace tips his head, eyes narrowed.

“How much longer should we give them? They’re nearly two vargas late,” Thace asks.

“Take your communicator with you. Let’s find something for lunch and wait until they get bored,” Prorok says, pushing out of his seat and stretching. “They’re getting a bonus for this. We might as well make them earn it.” Thace turns off the video feed and picks up a palm sized beeper instead.

“I’m thankful you weren’t so cruel with me a few ranks ago. I feel like I wouldn’t have lasted half a varga waiting around on a moon like that. Those suits are so uncomfortable,” Thace teases. Prorok holds the door open for him, watching after him as he walks ahead.

“It’s on me,” Prorok says. Thace glances at him over his shoulder with the smallest sound of curiosity. “Since this idea for the bounty seems to be working out so well,” he adds. Thace chuckles softly.

“I’m not used to you spoiling me like this, Prorok, but I think I could get used to it,” Thace hums.

* * *

 

“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Prorok growls. Thace sits across from him, looking out of the little alcove they’ve tucked themselves into and across the busy restaurant. A hundred other soldiers talking and milling around in their own quiet roar. No one paying attention to Prorok’s anxiety. No one paying attention to the communicator clutched in Thace’s hand. Nevertheless, Prorok leans slightly over the table, his voice dropping to little more than a hiss. “Those stupid- What were they thinking, arranging a meeting before they knew they had the thing secure?”

Thace’s mouth turns as he bites the inside of his cheek. “There’s no way to know for sure what happened until we have more reports of sightings come in. There’s a lot that could go wrong. The rest could have caught up with them before they could get away. They crash on their own. Their ship breaks down. Found a better deal somewhere else…” Thace trails off, keeping his details vague in case someone catches a scrap of conversation.

“Where the quiznak would they find a _better_ deal?” Prorok asks.

“I don’t know how those groups work. But you hear about prisoners all the time who would rather extend their sentence by defying the guards than earn the ire of their cellmates. Trust goes a long way among people who work without the protection of the law. They could have been tempted enough by the reward to go after it, but if they have a network, it may have been more important for them to maintain that trust,” Thace explains. The conversation lulls when a waitress comes by and refills their drinks. Prorok finds it very difficult to hide the nerves itching under his skin. Once she’s gone, Thace pulls the communicator from where he’s deftly hidden it in his palm.

“So what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Sit here and wait? Act like nothing happened? Trust the next batch of idiots that call us and claim they have something to offer?” Prorok asks.

“I can’t think of anything better-” Thace is cut off when Prorok growls, his ears pulling back flat against his head as he bares his fangs a little.

This wasn’t just some bet gone wrong. The bounty was still open and, leaving its distribution to Thace, he didn’t entirely know how far it had been spread. His own ignorance was irritating now that it was threatening to bite him in the ass. Someone finds out he had been the one to put the bounty out, there were a thousand overachievers more than willing to start throwing around words like ‘usurp’ and ‘coup’ just to get him out of his position as commander.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts when a warm hand covers his own where it’s fisted on the table . Finely trimmed claws gently dig into the back of his hand. Thace tucks his fingers in against his palm and squeezes lightly.

“When something goes wrong, the best thing is to lay low and wait for the storm to pass. I’m the one that’s thought of this plan. I apologize that it’s not working out as well as I had hoped. But, Prorok, it’s important to stay calm,” Thace says lowly. It’s difficult for Prorok to maintain the heat of his ire when Thace talks to him so calmly and calls him by his name. Not by his title, or by ‘sir’, but by his name. Prorok growls, and rests his head in his other hand, focuses on the soft brush of Thace’s thumb across the backs of his fingers.

“I’ll talk to the privates and make it very clear to them that they didn’t do or see anything. Our names aren’t attached to the bounty, but if you would like, I can take it down,” Thace says. Prorok is quiet for several seconds. Taking it down would put him more at ease, but the payoff of getting one of the lions would be too great. He believes Thace completely when he says they aren’t attached to it. Thace has always been careful and methodical to the highest degree. No names on the bounty, their correspondence scrambled or deleted. Pulling back now would leave Thace thinking he was a coward.

“No, leave it up. There’s no point in taking it down when the first takers fail to actually deliver.” Thace’s smile is small, because he’s always been a reserved person, but it’s genuine, warm. Something Prorok so very rarely sees when he’s working with him. Here, in this quiet alcove, it feels like something special. Something he can consider personal.

“Then just try not to worry too much, Prorok. I’ll take care of you.”

* * *

 

Prorok thinks he does well enough taking Thace’s advice and keeping calm about the entire ordeal. Thace says nothing more on the matter. So Prorok says nothing more either. It’s almost easy to simply trust that Thace knows what he’s doing when it comes to covering their tracks and distancing themselves from a bid to cripple Voltron through offering money to potential rebels. It’s quiet. He has nothing to bother him.

That is, until a handful of sentries burst into the office’s main room one morning just as he’s getting settled behind his desk. He watches, wide eyed and opened mouthed as the sentries gather around two desks. The privates they had sent out to pick up the lion. Prorok drops his papers. His chair squeaks across the floor as he stands and pulls his door open to see the commotion.

“Private Dek, you’re to be taken in for questioning under law code V-71843. Please show your hands,” one of the sentries chirps. Dek just sits in his chair for a second, shocked and clearly not fully understanding what the string of numbers the sentry just recited to him really means. He glances around the office almost like he’s spilled his drink instead of being arrested. The other private, Atha, stands too quickly for the sentries’ liking. He finds himself shoved over his desk, his arms wrenched behind him. Dek holds out his hands and lets the sentry cuff him calmly.

The entire exchange probably takes less than a minute, and Prorok watches it all with a nearly out of body detachment. He’s scared that one of them will look his way. That they will start yelling and pointing fingers and he’ll be hauled out of his own office just like them. One of the sentries lingers behind and comes his way, and for one wild second Prorok stands straighter because he thinks that maybe those thoughts aren’t too far off from reality.

Instead, it stops a few steps away from him and nods politely. “Apologies for the disruption, Commander Prorok,” it says. Prorok wants to glance towards the door that connects Thace’s office next to his own, but he knows he can’t see it from where he’s standing in the doorway and-

This is really too much to think about.

He steps back and motions for the sentry to come into his office with him. It speaks up again once he closes the door. “Requesting that you have copies of Private Dek and Private Atha’s schedules sent to the Investigations office by the end of the day, along with anything else you may think would be helpful to the questioning.”

“Okay, but what is this all about? That all happened pretty fast, and I didn’t quite catch it,” Prorok says. His heart hammers so hard in his chest he’s surprised he can’t hear it through his uniform. The sentry beeps quietly.

“Law code V-71843: Suspicious Activity. Nothing certain currently. Druids to conduct thorough investigation. Commander, have you noticed anything suspicious going on with them lately?” it asks.

Prorok shakes his head, before remembering that sentries are poor judges of body language. “No, I’ve not noticed anything odd or out of place. I’ll look into it today. Make sure to send you everything I can,” he says. Again, the sentry nods, opens the door for itself.

“Thank you, sir. Have a good day.” Prorok nearly tells it the same, despite it being an AI, but simply lets it close the door for itself and leave to catch up with the others. He rubs his temples tiredly, growls past his lips. That was… he didn’t know what to think about it. It was stressful, and tiresome, and something he wholly did _not_ want to deal with. The door to Thace’s office from the main room opens and snaps shut. Prorok’s ear twitches when he hears someone talking and decides he should check it out.

“What the quiznak was that?” Coming through the door that connects his office to Thace’s, he finds Throk leaning his hip on Thace’s desk. He grins, looking more like he’s just seen an interesting fight than two people hauled out of the office in cuffs. “It’s not everyday that sentries pop in and start shipping guys away reciting law codes.” Throk has probably been in here all of ten seconds, but Thace is already starting to look tired. “Did I hear it correctly? V-718-something? What did those guys do that was so ‘suspicious’?” Throk asks.

Prorok answers by jerking his thumb towards the door. “Don’t know. Sentry just told me they were being taken in for questioning. Thace, can you pull up Dek and Atha’s schedules and send them to Investigations?” Prorok says. Thace seems happy enough to ignore Throk, but Throk merely looks more interested than ever.

“ _Investigations_? Oh, that is serious, isn’t it,” Throk says.

Again, Prorok motions to the door. “And that’s all you’re hearing. Get out. Even if I did know more, you’d be the last person I’d give anything to. Go find something to do,” Prorok says. Throk grins and slinks out, the door clicking solidly behind him. Prorok locks it. For a couple of seconds, the only sound is Thace typing, then Prorok grumbles and settles heavily into a chair.

“What happened?” he asks. Thace doesn’t even look up from his screen as he reads. He motions towards the office outside, towards Throk. “Do you think he’s going to find anything?”

“I would be very, very surprised if he did,” Thace says easily. “I scrubbed everything as best I could.” Prorok frowns. He trusts Thace with his life but even that little bit of uncertainty gives him pause. Throk was nosy, and every bit as clever as Thace. The bad part of it was that Prorok was more than a little sure that Throk was eager for promotions but too impatient to wait for them to come by naturally.  

“As best you could?” Prorok asks. As best he could meant that if Throk, or someone like Throk, wanted to find dirt on him, they would find it. Certain kinds of people had infinite patience when they thought they could break open a conspiracy. Thace clicks on something, and the console pings. He sits back in his chair.

“I don’t know what set the sentries off. I talked to Dek and Atha, made it _very_ clear that they were to choose their reasons for being out of the office and stick to it. I triple checked all the surveillance through our communicators, video and audio feeds, flight records; got rid of all of it. Bounty was never connected to us. The reward money was taken from a place that couldn’t be tracked in the first place. The pardon was only ever a draft, and I burned it as soon as it was clear they weren’t going to deliver. There shouldn’t be anything to set anyone off. Investigations can ask for anything they want, they’re not going to find much interesting,” Thace says. And he says it easily. The way he sits is relaxed, his expression at ease, his speech confident. He’s in no way worried about his own work. Prorok flicks his ear nervously and reminds himself that he should trust Thace’s judgement as well. He’s the one doing most of the work here, and Prorok seems to just be fussing about it.

“Do you think they’ll say anything now that they’ve been taken in?” Prorok asks quietly. Thace’s expression changes. It’s subtle, but it’s an almost strange look on him. Thace has never been particularly open or warm, but this cold, detached look in his eyes feels like something is crawling up the back of Prorok’s neck.

“No,” Thace says firmly. No doubt in his voice. “They know what happens if they do.”

Prorok doesn’t have the nerve to ask him what that means.

* * *

 

Prorok can’t help but think that it didn’t really matter what Dek and Atha did or didn’t talk about. One way or another, they’ve still been missing for most of the week and in the end he’s still gotten this notice on his desk. It had felt strange, the sentry helping itself to his office, only to offer him this thin envelope and slip out just as quietly. Discreetly.

After all, the Empire was kind enough not to make a huge fuss when handing him a notice of the execution date for two of his former employees.

Prorok sighs and leans back in his chair, rubbing absent circles in the thick, high quality paper. Idly, he thinks it looks like the same kind of fancy paper that one would expect from a promotion, or an invitation to an aristocratic party. It’s quite nice for a condemnation. The date of the execution is written in finely inked script. As if it were not something he felt he was barely escaping himself and rather a social gathering that he could be tempted into attending.

His thoughts are cut short by his beeping console. He stares, his mind caught between the fleeting images of Dek and Atha awaiting death in the brig, somewhere in the innumerable levels below him and trying to puzzle out why someone posted outside of the main fleet would be calling him right now.

Sub-Commander Ylvik. Someone working for him outside of the main fleet. But he’s somewhere quiet, and the only time Ylvik ever calls him is for routine check ups. So why now? Without realizing it, he lets the call ring through. Within a handful of seconds, his console chirps at him again as he receives a message from Thace.

‘My apologies. I forwarded Ylvik to you without realizing you were probably too busy to take a call. If you have time can you call him back?’ Prorok rereads the message two or three times, still mulling over exactly what this could be about. Thace sends him another, shorter message.

‘It’s important business.’

Prorok flicks one of his ears in thought. It wasn’t like Thace to take so much time to choose his words; they usually seemed to come naturally to him. Prorok growls lowly, folds the execution letter neatly and shuts it up in one of his desk drawers. He calls Ylvik back. It picks up after only a couple rings.

“Commander Prorok. Apologies if I interrupted you,” Ylvik says. Prorok glances to the order he had just stashed in his desk and thinks that, whatever Ylvik has for him, it would be hard pressed to be something Prorok was less interested in dealing with than Dek and Atha’s demise.

“It’s fine,” Prorok sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I was just trying to figure out why you were calling me.” Ylvik doesn’t reply for a couple beats.

“Is this a private call as well?” he finally asks. Prorok frowns, glancing towards the door that connects his office with Thace’s.

“It is. What do you have?” Prorok asks, making a mental note to have Thace scrub the call’s recording if he needed.

“As you know, I’m posted near the Balmera X95-Vox, and not long ago I heard rumors of a rather interesting event. A Voltron paladin and an Altean, of all things, disrupting the mining operation established there. They made off with a battleship class crystal,” Ylvik says. Prorok hums. So? It was interesting to hear hints of how Voltron repaired their ship after Sendak’s attempts to capture them, but Voltron had already left the Balmera.

“So why am I hearing about it now?” Prorok asks, carefully keeping the information he has from the failed bounty sighting to himself.

“Because intelligence on this Balmera has been reporting rumors that Voltron intends to return and tear down the entire operation. Something about freeing the Balmerans and driving the Galra Empire away. While I have my doubts about the truth in these rumors,” Ylvik says. “But your lieutenant had a rather interesting idea in response.”

“First I heard of this,” Prorok starts. “What are you proposing?” Prorok is fully aware that he’s not the most subtle or cunning of the Empire’s commanders, but he didn’t get to this position by playing his cards loosely. His curiosity burns. What was Thace’s idea, and when had he come up with it?

“If Voltron makes good on whatever promises they’ve made with the Balmerans, I bring you as many lions as I can get. In exchange, you send me a recommendation for promotion,” Ylvik says, and after the barest hesitation; “Sir.”

“Do it, but tell me if Voltron shows up, and before you go in, I want to keep tabs on this,” Prorok says. He hardly has to ponder over the offer to snap it up. It’s an easy deal, and Ylvik stands to deal with the most loses. All Prorok has to do is think up of a convincing excuse for why Ylvik is going to wander a little outside of his usual patrol right when Voltron happens to show up.

“I was right to trust Thace in taking this to you. I’m confident this will work out for the best of all of us.” The door between his office and Thace’s eases open and Prorok glances over as Thace pokes his head in.

“Good luck, Ylvik,” he says, and hangs up. Thace relaxes a bit, leaning against the doorjamb. Prorok gives him a flat look.

“When did you come up with that idea?” he asks. Thace shrugs.

“When he called me earlier today and told me of those rumors. Now we know where Voltron went to fix their ship, and how Sendak tried to capture them when he had limited resources. I don’t see why Voltron wouldn’t show up again and make good on their promises. It would be an easy enough win since they’re still new,” Thace says. Prorok shakes his head. He never would have thought of that much through a simple phone call and a rumor of a rumor. But, this was worth trying, and Prorok can’t help but be impressed by Thace’s ability to think so far ahead.

* * *

 

A few days later the latest rumors find Prorok on his way to his quarters after work. Voltron had been spotted again at a Balmera a few galaxies over and, despite Haggar sending yet another of her experimental robeasts to handle the issue, Voltron remained triumphant. Some working in the main fleet are begrudgingly impressed. Prorok wants to tear out handfuls of his own fur.

* * *

 

A loud crash wakes him from his slumber. Prorok jerks awake. Footsteps in the main room. Prorok sits up, paws around in the dark for the phaser he keeps in his nightstand drawer. His bedroom door whooshes open and three masked intruders rush in. The drawer clatters to the floor. Prorok rolls out of bed and nearly trips as the blanket tangles around his legs. Strong hands shove him onto his back. His head thuds sharply on the metal wall. Prorok curses and they’re on him. One digs his claws into his shoulders to hold him down on his back. Another holds a sack in his hands.

“What-” he’s cut off when the third shoves a gag in his mouth. He huffs, tries to reach up to pull it out, but the one with the sack slips it over his head, pulls the drawstring hard around his neck and ties it off. All three of him jerk him out of bed, force his arms behind his back and cuff them tight together before they lead him out of his quarters and into the hall.

None of them says anything, and a mix of confusion and fear keeps him from fighting too hard. If he gets out of their hold, what would he do? He’s blinded and cuffed. So he focuses instead on trying to figure out where they take him, trying to create a rough map in his mind’s eye.

They take him downstairs, to a place where he hears shuffling paper and muted voices. An office? They push him through and into a silent room, where they force him into a cramped chair and shift his cuffs to the thin metal arms. They untie the bag from over his head, and he’s blinded by the bright light shining down on him. He blinks, squints against the light, but it’s too bright and too much of an adjustment for him to see anything of his captors before they slip out of the room and lock him in.

Prorok sighs and spends the next minute or so spitting the gag out onto the floor. He looks around the room, but there’s not much of interest. Flat metal table that digs into his stomach, too small metal chair that hurts his back. Dark, bare walls. Metal door with no window. The only light is the bright one shining down on him. It gives him a headache.

Why is he here? The bounty isn’t connected to him. His excuse of Ylvik checking out a dying star and ensuring that it wouldn’t damage Empire investments went uncontested. No one besides Thace knows anything about that and he has no reason to say anything because it would damn him in the process. No, this has to be a mistake.

He’s unsure how long he sits there pondering over these things before anything happens. All he knows is that his back has a pinch in the small of it and his legs are starting to go numb, his fingers started growing cold with his wrists being constricted long ago.

The door clicks open and someone steps in. Only marginally taller than himself, broad shouldered and narrow waisted. His uniform is marked with a symbol Prorok rarely sees. An investigator. The kind of people who questioned criminals and suspicious persons either not worth the druid’s time or before escalating something to their attention. He looks stuffy and all too stern for these extreme early hours. He hardly glances at Prorok as he takes a seat across from him, pulling out a thin folder, a small tablet and a pen from where it was tucked under his arm.

“Commander Prorok?” he asks, writing something down. He still hasn’t looked at him, and that gets Prorok’s ire just as much as anything else going on here.

“Yes, what the quiznak am I doing here? How can you have three of your people pull me out of bed, blind me, and then come in here like this is routine? Who are you?” Prorok growls. The man glances up, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Investigator Rodan. I’ve been tasked with asking you some questions. Now just seemed like the best time to get the most accurate answers from you. Don’t worry. If you simply answer them, you shouldn’t be here much longer,” Rodan says, writing all the while.

“Quiznaking get it over with then. I sit here much longer with you and I’m late for work,” Prorok spits irritably. Rodan responds simply by tucking his fingers in the folder and pulling out a single sheet of paper. He sets it on the table.

The bounty.

Prorok schools his reaction very carefully. He makes sure not to show any recognition, no panic, no worry. He squints at the paper, makes sure to read it only once before he glances at Rodan, who has his chin settled on steepled fingers. He looks bored but Prorok knows he’s reading his expression very carefully.

“What’s this?” Prorok asks finally.

“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Rodan hums. He starts writing again. This bounty appeared several weeks ago. Normally I wouldn’t think too much about it, but there’s a couple of interesting facts surrounding this,” Rodan says, not looking up from his notes.

“First, this appeared only a day or so after Commander Sendak was lost. This was made by someone who knew where he was and what he was doing, or had access to communications coming in to the main fleet. Someone very high up on the chain of command,” Rodan looks at him pointedly. “Second, I understand that not one, but two people were sentenced to death from your office not too long ago. Dek and Atha? You knew them?”

“Of course I knew them,” Prorok growls. “They worked in my office. But before you start connecting any kind of dots, I don’t know what they were taken in for. The only thing I was ever told when they were arrested was that it was suspicious activity. Not where or when or even what for. Didn’t realize it was anything treasonous until I got the notice in a couple days ago.”

Rodan stares at him, unblinking, for what feels like a full minute. Prorok stares back, determined not to squirm. But his heart is hammering in his throat. He’s sure that to a trained eye his pulse would be visible in his neck. His mind reels with a thousand excuses for that. He’s nervous because he’s been pulled out of bed. He’s been abducted, how else was he supposed to feel?

Finally, Rodan breaks off first and writes down even more notes. “So let’s say that’s true. And you have no idea what happened with them. Can you tell me anything more general? Have you noticed any suspicious activity? Anyone you know specifically that has access to communications, or a particular interest in it?”

He was fishing. Prorok knew that he knew that Thace fit both of those criteria, but to admit that was to damn himself. Prorok sags in his chair a little. Absolutely not. If they want Thace, they can arrest him themselves, but Prorok would never, ever willingly sell him out. Thace was too good to him. He trusted him too much.

“Everyone ranked general and above has open access to incoming transmissions.” Prorok leans forward a little in his chair, as if he’s explaining something very complex to the investigator. “They also have the ability to give access to those transmissions. A commander oversees a lot of people. I don’t know anything about who has any specific interest in it. Who would? It’s all so boring.”

“Except when it’s not,” Rodan points out. Prorok nods.

“Except when it’s not. But the point of this is that I don’t know. And if I don’t know, I can’t help you, and if I can’t help you, would you _please_ let me out of these quiznaking shackles before I decide to strangle you once I’m loose of these thing?” Rodan stare darkens sharply. Prorok sets his jaw so hard his teeth ache because he _knows_ he’s gone too far. Tipped his hand and showed too much and now, somehow, Rodan could use any excuse he wanted to send him to those damned druids and-

Rodan sighs, clearly irritated, but his shoulders relax. He taps his pen on his notebook. Prorok’s mind feels strained, like it has to work too hard to realize that look had just been a warning.

“Not quite yet, I have another line of questioning I want to go down,” he says. Prorok sighs tiredly.

By the time he’s escorted back to his own quarters, he has only an hour left before he has to get ready for the day. His head pounds. His heart pounds harder. That was… harrowing, and now he doesn’t know what to think about anything. He wants to sleep, but sleeping in and taking the day off would be too obvious what happened. He’s not willing to show anyone that he’s run down. He wants to call Thace, to either warn him that they may be coming for him next, or comfort him if they already had but… they’re watching, aren’t they? He hasn’t been home for hours. Plenty of time for anyone to bug his quarters, track his calls. No, anything said has to be said face to face or not at all.

* * *

 

The first thought that springs to Prorok’s mind when he makes his way into the office break room and sees Thace sitting at the small table with a cup of a warm, bitter smelling drink in his hands, is that he wants to tell him. It almost falls from his lips.

_Last night three people broke into my quarters and abducted me._

_I think they’re on to you._

But he can’t. Walking in first thing in the morning, in this flat, but familiar light and this cramped, but familiar room sends shivers up his spine. Turn the lights off, it’s the same room. Masked men could come in behind him and the whole thing could start over again. No, if he mentioned anything, acted like anything abnormal was happening, Thace would think he were mad. He sighs thickly, dragging his hand over his face. He takes a piece of stiff bread from the spread on the counter and forces himself to take a bite. Out of the corner of his eye he feels more than sees Thace’s stare, watches him tip his head lightly.

“Prorok. Are you okay?” Thace asks softly. His fingers, long and finely boned, wrap lightly around his cup. “You look like you had a rough night.”

Wildly, Prorok wonders if Thace somehow knows about what happened. He nearly asks something to give himself away, but swallows it down with another mouthful of tough bread. There’s no way Thace has anything to do with the interrogation, and he’s far too calm to have dealt with it himself. Somehow, Prorok is convinced they’ve passed over Thace in all of these failures lately and gone straight after himself.

“Ah,” Prorok says, his voice rough. He clears his throat. “Just… didn’t sleep well last night.” Thace gives him a curious look, as if trying to read him.

“Nightmares?” he asks softly. He sounds so genuinely concerned that Prorok almost feels bad for bothering him with it. He hums nonchalantly.

“More like I couldn’t sleep in the first place. Thinking too hard,” Prorok says. “Stuff… like those rumors I’ve been hearing about Voltron showing up at that Balmera.” Thace’s chair squeaks a little as he pushes back from the table and stands. He closes the space between them, sets a hand on Prorok’s upper arm and squeezes gently.

“I’ve been worried about you lately,” Thace says softly. They’re the only two people in the room but Prorok feels a little self conscious. His fur tingles with some slight electricity, his tired heart thudding in the hollow of his throat. After a slight pause, like he’s considering something, Thace leans in a bit further, touching his cheek to Prorok’s shoulder. His ear brushes lightly in the sensitive space just beneath Prorok’s own. The sensation seems to stick to him like a physical thing, the little touch enough to nearly have him shivering.

“Don’t overthink it so much,” Thace says. His words sound a little rough. At first, Prorok wonders if Thace is genuinely upset, but in the little pause between sentences, he realizes Thace is purring softly. “There’s nothing to worry about. I told you I would handle it, and I have.”

In a moment of bravery, Prorok reaches up with his free hand and brushes his fingertips over Thace’s ear. It’s warm, and incredibly soft, but Thace twitches it away and slowly pulls away from him. Thace glances to the closed door of the break room, brushing his own fingers over his ear as if to straighten the fur there as he shoots Prorok a knowing look. “Sorry, rumors,” he says simply. Prorok feels like a kit, thinking that he wouldn’t entirely fight rumors like that if Thace were involved in them with him, but he nods. “You really do look exhausted though. Are you sure you don’t want to take a half day and come back this afternoon? I’d be surprised if you didn’t have leave saved up.”

Prorok shakes his head. “No, I’m fine. I’d rather just keep going now that I’m here.”

Later, he would question the wisdom of that.

* * *

 

A strange thing. The air around the main fleet hangs heavy, tense, like the entire fleet is holding their breath. Ever since Princess Allura had been captured and brought before the Emperor, it seems like every second has a new weight to it. But even though the sense of anticipation around the fleet lingers on, Prorok has nothing better to do than stand on the bridge, watching the stars slowly turn across the windows and making sure everyone here with him looks less bored than he feels. They’re all just waiting for something to actually happen, but in the meantime, the waiting itself is rather dull.

“I’d be surprised if they actually showed,” Throk muses, pulling Prorok from his thoughts. Prorok turns as Throk comes up behind him, sinking into a chair with a tired groan. “It would be suicide. Everyone knows the Princess is here. They have to know we’re waiting for them.”

“True, but they don’t seem to work like anyone else. One of the paladins? Maybe. They can be replaced. But…”

Throk chuckles. “They’ve got to save their Princess from the big, bad Galra,” he says. Prorok hums, biting back a yawn. Throk rests his cheek in his hand. “Speaking of saving, you should go find Thace in the comm room before you go home. I ran into him as I was coming into _and_ leaving from my last shift and I’m not entirely convinced he’s taken any breaks since then. The guy’s gotta be dead on his feet,” Throk waves him off. “Work’s over, boss.”

“Shut your mouth,” Prorok grumbles, even as he steps back from the center console. Throk leans back in his seat, looking entirely too comfortable to be taking over as acting commander while Prorok’s getting some sleep. But fine. He’s got more important things to handle at the moment.

Instead of turning right towards the elevators that lead to the private quarters, Prorok takes a left towards more of the offices, but more specifically, the communications room. It’s where Thace apparently likes to spend a lot of his time when he’s not working, where he’d found out about Voltron in the first place and where he’s been gathering much of the information he’s been passing along to Prorok over the past few months. Right now, Prorok’s let him stay in there because he could trust Thace to keep his ear to the incoming signals and relay that information quicker than any sentry.

But as Prorok nears the door, he hears voices filtering through. Not well enough to make out any words, but one definitely has the same cadence as Thace. The other a softer, deeper voice he doesn’t recognize. Curious, Prorok leans closer, straining his ears to catch even a scrap of conversation, but he quickly comes to the conclusion he’s not going to get anything specific through a solid metal door. He sets his hand to the lock and opens it.

Thace stiffens, his ears pulling back tight towards the door in surprise. Something beeps before the door even finishes opening and Thace glances over his shoulder. The firm, almost aggressive expression Thace turns on him in that single second takes Prorok by surprise. He hesitates near the door. He glances around. Besides Thace, the room was empty. Confused, Prorok clears his throat.

“Think of going to bed any time soon?” he asks. Thace visibly relaxes. He keeps one hand in his lap, his fingers curled around something he can’t see. Prorok pretends not to notice, but his curiosity is too strong to completely ignore. “Thought I heard someone talking in here, but… you’re alone,” Prorok says looking around the room.

Thace looks a little shy. “Ah… myself. I was trying to keep myself awake so I turned up some of the incoming messages and talked to myself to stay focused,” he says. That… makes sense. Prorok hadn’t pinned Thace as someone prone to talking to himself but, it was a little cute.

He shrugs. “Go to bed then, if even for a few hours,” he says, motioning towards the door. “I’m not going to let you run yourself ragged and be out of it when-”

A metallic groan. A muffled explosion. The console beside Thace bursts into a flurry of lights and chirping alarms. Thace tucks whatever he’s holding into the collar of his suit and turns to the console, flipping a series of switches. Alarms, and the steady, scripted message for everyone able to report and prepare for an incoming attack.

Prorok sets his jaw. Voltron finally decided to show up. “Come on,” he says tensely. Thace stands and follows him down the hall to the bridge. The windows, just a few minutes ago a sea of slowly drifting stars, is now filled with writhing swarms of Galra fighters, the first already bursting into rough, orange bursts of light. The lions cutting through them.

Prorok immediately sets to first booting Throk out of his chair and back to his desk, then giving out commands. It’s easy to lose time when the situation gets tense. He sends out his own fighters into the fray, breaks them up, tries his hardest to get at least one of the lions pinned down. But they’re quick and devastatingly powerful. No sooner can the fighters manage to get close before the lions take them out.

Suddenly, the entire room shudders, the vibrations shake through him, leaves his knees feeling weak. The lights flicker, and the console screens dim threateningly before they come back to full power. Prorok turns to Thace behind him.

“What was that?” he asks tensely. The second or so Thace spends typing instead of giving him an immediate answer feels like it drags on for minutes. But then Thace squints at the screen, one ear flicking, and then he turns a look on Prorok that is just a little unsure.

“There’s been a breach in the hull somewhere below us. I-I think one of the lions punched through it,” Thace says. “It knocked out the cameras. I can’t get a visua-” The room goes almost completely dark. Flickering, then dimming into standby mode. A crackle goes through the air. Through the light filtering in through the windows, Prorok sees Thace’s eyes go wide.

Prorok turns and sees a line of purple energy creeping along from both the bottom and the top of their view. The solar barrier. It leeches vast amounts of energy, raising the fur on the back of Prorok’s neck. But, it should be pulling energy from the sun they’re orbiting. And it is, if the slight dimming effect is anything to go by. It shouldn’t be taking their power in this room. Prorok drums his fingers on his console nervously, but it’s Thace that speaks up.

“Commander, allow me to go down stairs to check the power and restore it if I can. We’re blind in standby like this, and no help to those outside. We’ve got Voltron trapped in here with us, we can’t allow that to happen,” Thace pleads. Prorok frowns, but Thace is the person he trusts most to take care of this out of anyone in the room.

“Go. Quickly,” Prorok growls. “I don’t want the Emperor to have an excuse to tell me I was sitting around when they bring Voltron to heel.” Thace slips quickly from the room and Prorok turns back to the window, watching as the solar barrier’s two sides finally mesh together into a solid, swirling wall of energy. Prorok can’t help grinding his teeth waiting for Thace’s return or success in restoring power. The lion must have knocked out some vital power line when crashing through the hull and right now, sitting around and watching the fighters run down Voltron and the Altean ship in an attempt to capture it feels like torture.

The ship shudders again, but instead of the power flickering back on like he expects, something happens that makes his blood run cold. The solar barrier dims, flickers, then breaks apart in a boom that rattles deep in Prorok’s ears.

A hushed murmur of panic runs through the room. He stares, wide eyed, as a massive, glowing blue wormhole appears in empty space in front of the white ship. Almost instantly Haggar’s black magic arcs out, dyes the wormhole a necrotic purple just as it’s closing.

“Are you quiznaking kidding me?” Throk growls somewhere behind him, when the wormhole is gone and they’re all left staring into space in a dark and quiet room. Throk curses to himself but Prorok hardly hears him. Haggar had managed to get the last say in that fight, surely, but the solar barrier didn’t just disappear like that. It drew power from the sun they orbited and almost nothing short of the star’s total destruction could cause the barrier to short out like that. Nothing short of sabotage.

Prorok’s heart drops into his stomach thinking of how he’s going to explain this.

* * *

 

_Who has been trying to chisel Voltron away from me this entire time?_

It feels like a nightmare. One minute he’s standing in a secluded hallway on the way to the throne room, Thace’s arms strong and warm around his neck as he listened to his reassurances. There’s nothing to be worried about. The power had gone out on the bridge. The ship was damaged. Surely, as odd as it was, they had to be connected. Mechanical failure.

_Who sent his fleet out without my orders to get Voltron?_

The next minute sentries’ fingers dig into his arms and no matter how he struggles, there’s no fighting them. The last thing he hears Zarkon say as he’s dragged away is ‘Get rid of him,’ and his mind is clouded in panic as he tries to fight free of their grasp. Commanders didn’t get fired. They didn’t get dishonorably discharged. They died.

And Thace, Thace only looks back at him wide eyed and Prorok can’t even think to go gracefully.

His ears are burning. It’s not a spot light they have over him. More like a heat lamp. The small of his back is pinched, the straps they secured to the table with cut into his wrists and stomach, dig in against his throat. He can’t breathe, he can’t see into the darkness on the other side of the room. Blood coats his tongue where his teeth have cut deeply into his cheek. The coppery taste makes his stomach turn. A buzzsaw looms close where it hangs down from the ceiling. Light glints off it threateningly.

“I’ll ask you once again,” the druid asks, his voice behind his mask low and hissing, distorted in a way that Prorok is no longer sure is natural, or just an effect of his ongoing torture. He stands behind a short console. “Did you deactivate the solar barrier?”

“No- Never-” Prorok pants. The druid goes still. Stares at him. Prorok blinks against the light, a headache pounding behind his eyes. His skin crawls watching that mask. It feels like the druid is looking _through_ him, picking apart his mind, digging into his flesh with merely a glace. “I didn’t-” Prorok cuts himself off with a startled yelp. The druid flips a switch and the saw whirrs to life. Prorok gasps, tries to shy away as it creeps nearer.

“Do you know who _did_ deactivate the barrier?” the druid asks. Prorok stutters. His mouth is dry, his tongue sticky with blood.

“N-no!” he manages. All he can see is the spinning saw. His eyes grow wide as it inches nearer, close enough that Prorok can _feel_ the air pushing off of it.

“Another question then,” the druid hums. He stands just barely within sight. His voice is entirely untinged by emotion, like he’s unaffected by his own actions and Prorok’s terror. “Do you know of _any_ spy activity? Anyone besides yourself who may have treasonous intentions?”

Prorok pulls his ears back tight against the sharp sound of the saw. He’s mesmerized by the spinning blade. His heart hammers in his chest, his stomach clenching around a cold block of icy fear. It’s going to cut him. It’ll gut him. He’ll be strapped to his table watching his innards run out into the floor-

“Prorok? Answer my question,” the druid prods.

“I-I-I don’t-” he pants weakly, not pulling his eyes from the saw. The druid hums almost like he’s disinterested and flips another switch. The saw doesn’t creep any closer.

It lurches.  

Hard metal teeth rip through his shirt like gauze. It bites into his skin down the center of his chest, so close Prorok has to jerk his face to the side to not lose a part of his face. He yelps, tries to shy away, but he’s already flat against the table. Tiny droplets of liquid hits the side of his face. His own blood.

The druid pulls the saw away again after what has to be less than a second. It slows to a stop, and Prorok watches as thin rivulets of red run down the side. He’s not going to look down at his chest. The wound stings and his shirt grows wet and sticky down his stomach. He groans softly, his pain throbbing in time with his racing heartbeat.

“I want names, Prorok,” the druid says lowly.

Prorok grimaces, panting through his teeth. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, trying to will away his pain and fatigue. “I don’t have any.”

“Is it that you truly don’t have any names, or that you’re unwilling to give them to me?” the druid asks. Thace, of all people, pops into his mind. It had been Thace who had given him the idea of the bounty. Thace who had contacted Ylvik and proposed trying to meet Voltron at the Balmera. But Thace had also supported him, and stood up for him.

_He didn’t speak up for you in the throne room. When the hammer fell, it fell solely on you._

But that had happened fast, and by surprise. Once Zarkon got something in his mind, he wasn’t known to let it go just for one person’s pleading. No, even if Thace had thought fast enough to say something, speaking up would have only landed him in the same place Prorok himself was now. He didn’t deserve that.

_Did he?_

“What does it matter?” he asks after a long pause. The druid merely turns on the saw again, watching him emotionlessly.

“I suppose it doesn’t now,” he says. “Your fate is already decided, but just know that we’ll flush out whoever you’re protecting sooner rather than later.” The saw creeps closer again and Prorok whimpers trying to pull away from it. But one thought rises, clear and sharp, through his terror.

He’d like to see the druids try.

**Author's Note:**

> Go love on the art. [@ashcott](https://ashcott.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Go love on the beta! [@mizulekitten](https://mizulekitten.tumblr.com)
> 
> I'm on tumblr: [@quiddid](http://quiddid.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If you're here, thank you for reading!


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